A Question of Loyalty
by Chris Ganale
Summary: In an alternate reality, the clone commanders reject Order 66 and spare the lives of their Jedi commanders. Prequel piece for Total War.


**A/N:** This is something of a companion piece to "The Night the Force Died" but moreover, it's the tale of how Order 66 went down in my "Total War" storyline.

* * *

"Oh by the way, I think you'll be needing this," the armored man said, reaching down to the side of his utility belt with his right hand. He produced a bladeless weapon hilt, and held it up toward the figure seated atop the lizard mount.

"Thank you, Cody," the man replied, reaching down and gently taking the hilt from his friend and battlefield commander. With his rough-spun tunic and no other armaments, he didn't look like he belonged anywhere near the battlefield, blaster fire screaming back and forth around him, armored soldiers on the platform exchanging fire with metallic opponents within the city.

The man turned to the similar lizard mount next to him, and the man seated on top of it. The other man's tunic was black leather and brown fabric, and he was younger than the other man. "Come on, Anakin, we've got a battle to win," the first man said.

Grinning wildly, Anakin Skywalker spurred his mount, which raced toward the natural rock bridge leading off the platform along the cliff face. Obi-Wan Kenobi was only a handspan behind him.

As the two Jedi departed, clone commander 2224, given name Cody, glanced at the open sky near the cliff face the Jedi were traveling on. He turned to the trooper next to him and pointed to the LAAT/i gunship sailing along the cliff wall. "Sergeant, get that gunship down here," he said. "We need rapid entry on the upper levels."

The trooper nodded and turned away, lifting a hand to the side of his helmet. As he did so, Cody's handheld hypercomm began beeping. Settling his helmet over his head, he reached down and grabbed the device, holding it up in his right hand and triggering the device's reception.

A cloaked and hooded figure appeared in washed-out blue over the projector plate. Shifting the device slightly, Cody stared into the holographic cowl and barely, _barely_, recognized the face of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Something had obviously happened to disfigure the chancellor's face. It was no concern of his. He waited.

"_Commander Cody."_ Even Palpatine's voice was disfigured; it was deeper now, more menacing. There was no hint of warmth or compassion at all. _"The time has come. Execute Order 66."_

For a moment, Cody was left to feel the unfamiliar, startling feeling that he had absolutely no idea as to what Palpatine was referring. Then he flashed back to a brief moment during his commander training under A-17, Alpha. Another ARC, A-1337, had entered the training room and held a brief, quiet conversation with Alpha. Cody hadn't been meaning to listen in, but he was the closest to the two ARCs and could hear what they were saying.

They had been discussing a secret order to kill the Jedi that Tyranus had tried to pay the Kaminoans to indoctrinate into the clones. Due to some contingency payment that had been given to the Kaminoans before the army had even been created, the clones had never been indoctrinated with the order. He briefly tried to remember what order number it had been.

Then, as the number sixty-six flashed in his mind, his blood ran cold. Chancellor Palpatine had just ordered him to kill General Kenobi and General Skywalker. His combat instincts told him that everything about this order was wrong.

"That's a negative, Chancellor," Cody said. He paused for a moment, then said, "Can't comply with an order of that magnitude without the executive confirmation code."

It was total _osik_, but it was the first thing that came to his mind.Without waiting to hear anything else from the Chancellor, he switched off the hypercomm and threw it off the side of the platform. With cold apprehension coursing through his veins, he turned to see that the trooper was trying to get his attention.

"That's a negative on the Larty, Commander," the trooper replied. "The 501st is using it for special operations."

Under normal circumstances, Cody would've simply tried to get another gunship. But something caused him to grab the trooper's arm as he began to turn away. "The 501st. They're Chancellor Palpatine's _personal_ legion, right? They get all the missions he deems high priority?"

The trooper nodded.

Cody swore, violently. Releasing the trooper, he turned to the AT-TE on the platform behind him, whistling sharply to get the attention of the open-air turret gunner. "Private!" he shouted, glancing at his helmet display's ID scanner. He pointed to the LAAT/i gunship. "Blast that Larty out of the sky!"

"Sir?" the gunner asked.

"Did I stutter, trooper?" Cody shouted back. He turned around to review the scene before him. The lizard mounts of Kenobi and Skywalker were scrabbling for purchase on the narrow ledge running along the cliff face. Floating in midair, almost on their same level, the gunship was turning toward them, bringing its considerable arsenal of weaponry to bear on them.

Cody pointed to the gunship with his right hand. "Blast 'im!"

Without another word, the gunner complied. A blast of blue energy shot out of the swiveling turret, arcing through the air to crash directly into the cockpit of the gunship. The forward section of the gunship disappeared in a ball of flame and smoke, and the entire vehicle dropped a dozen meters. What remained of its nose came up, and for a moment it looked like the gunship would recover itself.

Then the concussion missile magazine detonated, ripping the remains of the gunship apart in a massive fireball that filled the center of the sinkhole. Flaming shrapnel bounced off the canyon walls and descended into the abyss kilometers below.

When the smoke cleared, he could not see either Kenobi or Skywalker, and feared that in trying to save them, he had, in fact, killed them.

"_Cody!"_ Kenobi's shocked voice called across his helmet comlink. _"What the blazes was that? Did you just shoot down one of our own gunships?"_

Relief washed over the commander. "A bad bit of business, General Kenobi," Cody replied. "It seems that the Chancellor's put out a bounty on Jedi heads, and that gunship tried to cash it in."

---

On the crystalline world of Mygeeto, blasterfire rained down on the damaged bridge spanning between the city and the landing platform. Two ovular missile turrets on spindly legs took up positions on the Separatist side of the bridge, hurling one proton projectile after another at the advancing Galactic Marines. One missile shot beneath a boxy Unstable-Terrain Armored Transport and detonated, pitching the vehicle over the side of the bridge in flames.

Battle droids advanced rigidly toward the center of the bridge, their blasters spitting hot red energy at the advancing clones. A Marine pitched forward, smoke pouring from the gaping hole in his chest plate. Jedi General Kit Fisto took a step toward the fallen clone, his lightsaber sparking and hissing as it reflected one, two, three blaster bolts back in the direction they'd come. Taking advantage of the Jedi's action, another Marine dropped into the cover the downed man had occupied, dragging him back behind cover.

Ahead of them, a trio of Armored Assault Tanks rumbled onto the bridge, firing their main turrets and sideboard laser cannons into the Marine group. Several Marines screamed as they were thrown bodily by the shockwave of the blasts, at least two sailing over the side of the bridge. Kit stepped back behind the cover of a ruined UT-AT, his lightsaber humming as he assessed the situation.

Further back, clone commander 1138, Bacara, drove his helmeted head forward, hard, into the faceplate of an air battle droid that had risen up from beneath the bridge to ambush the Marines. The droid was stunned for a fraction of a second, long enough for Bacara to free his right arm. He grabbed the droid around the neck, then ran forward, driving it back into a piece of debris. A sheared-off metal pipe impaled the droid, which immediately locked up, releasing the clone commander.

Stepping back, Bacara watched the dying droid for a moment, then brought up his blaster carbine and slammed the butt into the droid's face, shattering its visual sensor. He then turned toward the advancing line of Marines, took quick stock of the situation, and signaled for two nearby Marines to pull the PL-X missile launchers from the wreckage of the nearest UT-AT.

As they did this, Bacara's helmet comlink began to beep at him, indicating a priority communication. With a glance and a blink to the correct eye-activated sensor, a voice broke over the sounds of the battlefield: _"Execute Order Sixty-Six."_

Without even replying, the brusque clone commander shut off the communication, then began to run from one piece of cover to another, advancing toward Kit Fisto. As he approached, he sent a comlink message to the Marine nearest Fisto, the one who had pulled the fallen Marine out of harm's way. "Jenson! Where are the 501st troopers?"

Far ahead of him, Bacara saw the Marine look around at their side of the battlefield, then turn back and fire at an oncoming super battle droid. _"Moving to the front, sir,"_ the Marine answered._ "Heading to General Fisto's position."_

Bacara swore, violently. "Get some men and meet me at the general's location. The 501st are about to blow Fisto away."

The Marine didn't ask questions. _"As you command."_

At the front of the lines, Kit Fisto stepped out of his cover, his green lightsaber reflecting a super battle droid's blaster bolt back into its own head, knocking the war droid over. Braving a hailstorm of Separatist fire, Fisto looked back at the covering Marines, including the six troopers on loan from the 501st.

"Come on!" he shouted, then began to move forward.

No one followed.

Fisto stopped in his tracks as he heard the scratch of heavy boots on the debris of the bridge. He turned slowly, listening to the clicking and whirring of the six 501st blasters as the troopers reconfigured them to fire faster bolts at closer range, then level them on the Jedi. Behind them, he saw a dozen Marines stand up from behind their cover, also leveling their blasters.

Then, seemingly defying the natural order of the universe, the Marines opened fire, their blasters aimed not at Kit himself, but at the half-dozen 501st troopers. The blue-armored clones cried out in pain and outrage, pitching forward onto the bridge, all except for two. Of these two, one turned to fire back at the Marines, catching one of the overcoat-clad men in the shoulder and knocking him onto his back. The other trooper, the 501st sergeant, fired at Kit.

The Jedi's lightsaber immediately came about, parrying the blaster bolts. Most of them went wide, but two shot into the exposed back of the other 501st trooper. A gurgling sound escaped the falling man, before being cut off as a Marine's sniper shot disintegrated his faceplate.

Before the 501st sergeant could loose another volley of bolts, Commander Bacara suddenly appeared behind him, and the hard splintering sound of a blade being driven through plastoid armor broke over the sound of the battle. The hardy clone commander then grabbed the bleeding trooper by his arm, pulled him to the side of the bridge, and shoved him off the side with a hard boot to the man's back. The sergeant's scream echoed down the chasm.

---

Felucia, in the Outer Rim.

A formation of armored Republic vehicles crunched through the fungal forests, consisting of an AT-TE, an All-Terrain Open Transport, two All-Terrain Attack Pods, another AT-OT, and another AT-TE bringing up the rear. A pair of strange, long-tailed birds passed over the convoy, drawing the attention of several of the troopers sitting in the open-backed transport.

On the ground, Aayla Secura, Commander Bly, and several of the commander's lieutenants walked under the nose of the lead AT-TE, moving to the right of the convoy to continue their patrol for any Separatist forces lying in ambush.

To the left of the AT-TE, one of Bly's lieutenants marched alongside another clone, mounted on a Felucian gelagrub, a large blue ground slug. "We've been getting scattered reports of the 501st trying to take out the Jedi on varying fronts," the mounted trooper said. "No word yet on casualties."

Nodding, the lieutenant turned and jogged beneath the nose of the AT-TE, doubtless spooking the pilot into thinking he'd been mashed flat, and trotted to join Bly and Secura's group. Once there, he communicated the information he'd received to the clone commander via their helmet comlinks.

As Aayla approached the overlook of a small valley, Bly signaled his men to form a protective echelon around the Jedi; there were units of the 501st on-planet, and he didn't want them getting the better of their group.

At the crest of the overlook, Aayla stopped, looking into the valley, noting the silence of the native life. She tightened her grip on her lightsaber. "Bly, do you think it's droids?" she asked.

"Worse," the commander replied, stepping up beside her. "Us."

The Twi'lek Jedi turned a perplexed expression to the clone commander, but before she could ask him what he meant, a rustling sound spooked a native bird into flight, temporarily distracting her.

In an instant, four clones wearing the distinctive blue-striped armor of the 501st Legion moved out of the underbrush, their blasters leveled at her. Bly and his lieutenants reacted immediately. Their blasters snapped to, and a vicious firefight erupted between them.

A 501st trooper let out a startled cry as a blaster bolt burned through his chest, spinning him around and dropping him to the moist ground. Two of Bly's lieutenants dropped, one shot in the head, the other through the side of his stomach. The second man hit the ground, swore violently, and kept shooting.

The armored figure of Commander Bly stepped directly between Aayla and the traitorous 501st troops, the strobes of blaster fire casting harsh blue highlights on his armor. Then Bly's entire body shook as though he'd been electrocuted and the commander pitched onto his back, black holes burned into his torso.

By now, Aayla was over the shock of the 501st attacking them, and was moving to attack. Her blue lightsaber erupted into existence, parrying the bolts of the two remaining 501st troopers; the third was a smoking heap of armor thrown against a tree when one of Bly's crafty lieutenants had thrown a mine at the trooper, then shot it in midair.

The Jedi's lightsaber cut down hard, shearing off the right leg of the leftmost trooper at the knee. The armored man screamed in pain, hopping away on his remaining leg, as Aayla swung into a full circle, her lightsaber coming back high and lopping off the trooper's helmeted head. The man collapsed bonelessly to the ground.

Now moving past the last remaining trooper, Aayla gently swung her lightsaber backwards, laying open the clone's back and pitching him forward onto his stomach, where a blaster bolt from one of Bly's lieutenants burst his helmet like a rotten fruit.

Deactivating her lightsaber, Aayla turned to see several of Bly's lieutenants kneeling around their fallen commander. One trooper had taken his helmet off, and the expression on his face caused Aayla's vision to swim with tears.

His eyes closed, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, Commander Bly had died with a smile on his face. He had died protecting Aayla, and protecting his right as an individual to say no.

---

Kashyyyk, homeworld of the Wookiees, Mid-Rim.

In the highest command center overlooking the Battle of Kachirho, Yoda, the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, stumbled forward, his gimer stick clattering to the wooden floor of the command center as the diminutive Jedi Master lifted his hand to his chest. He had always been able to feel the deaths of Jedi, even Padawans and younglings.

Death was what he was feeling now, both widespread and concentrated. Confusion and fear mingled with the feeling of death. Across the galaxy, Jedi were dying. But it wasn't a pervasive death, not a wholesale purge of the Jedi.

The battlefield below rumbled with explosions as Yoda leaned against a branch of the Kachirho Tree, struggling to comprehend the wash of feelings and sensations flowing to him through the Force.

---

In the skies of Cato Neimoidia, Jedi Master Plo Koon soared through one of the canyon-cities that had been captured by the special forces unit of the 501st. The wind whistled over the airfoils of his Delta-7 _Aethersprite_ starfighter, one of the few still in use by the Jedi. Behind him, a trio of ARC-170 starfighters cut through the air currents, sideslipping and changing altitude to avoid the "streets" of the city stretching across the canyon on vast bridges.

Inside the cockpit of the lead ARC-170, Clone Commander Jag glanced up from his instruments as the hooded form of Chancellor Palpatine appeared in holo above his console.

"_Execute Order 66."_

The hologram winked out, leaving Commander Jag with a perplexed expression, and the question "What?" slipping out.

In the center cockpit behind Jag, his weapons officer called down to him, "Sir, the 501st are warning us out of their firing zone."

Instinctively, Jag glanced down at his sensors. "Why? I'm not reading any Sep craft in the area."

"No idea. They're just warning us to get clear or risk being hit."

Before Jag could reply, a blue burst of energy, a turret round from an AT-TE, rose up from one of the bridges and struck Plo Koon's starfighter amidships. The engines of the fighter exploded, sending the Jedi's craft spiraling down toward an observation tower on the side of the canyon.

Swearing a violent Mandalorian oath, Jag led his pilots in a break away from the crashing ship, then circled around and opened fire on the attacking AT-TE, green laser fire shearing through the flexible joint of the main turret and sending the turret, with the gunner still aboard, falling into the canyon below.

Behind them, flames filled the _Aethersprite_'s cockpit as it struck the side of the tower, shearing the left half of the fighter away and sending the main section, including the cockpit, slamming down on top of the adjacent outpost. The entire vehicle burst into flames, skidding along the roof of the outpost before slamming full-on into a sensor tower and shearing it off.

The starfighter and tower then joined the AT-TE turret in its descent toward the bottom of the canyon.

---

On the beaches of Kachirho, three Wookiees pumped explosive quarrel after explosive quarrel into the sides of a Corporate Alliance snail droid, until finally the besieged vehicle exploded, destroying the four battle droids on our near it, and pitching one high into the air. A pair of oncoming Wookiee air catamarans were forced to dodge to either side to avoid the flying droid-missile.

The catamarans soared over the beachfront, the Wookiees riding them firing hand bowcasters at the droid units below them. One well-placed shot tagged the reactor plate of a passing HMP Separatist gunship, blasting a hole into the side of the craft and sending it streaming toward the ground below.

From behind a seawall, a dozen HAVw AG Juggernaut turbotanks roared into the battle, the massive wheeled tanks dwarfing the other vehicles of the battlefront as they sprayed missiles and laser fire into the oncoming droid ranks. Equally-large AT-APs joined the charge, bringing the Separatist advance to a grinding halt and crushing back their front-line forces.

High above the battle, in the uppermost command center of the Republic, CC-1004, Commander Gree, stared through the green-tinted lens of his helmet at the vanishing hologram of Chancellor Palpatine. If the commander had any idea what 'Order 66' pertained to, he likely would have followed the order without question.

Perhaps Master Yoda knew about the order. Slipping the miniature holocomm back into his utility belt, Gree turned and walked toward the front of the command center, where Yoda, Chewbacca the Wookiee, and Chewbacca's father Tarrful stood watching the unfolding battle. One of Gree's subcommanders was also in the command center, relaying data down to the frontline units. The two clones exchanged a nod, then the subcommander resumed his duty as Gree took a knee beside Yoda.

"Master Yoda, I just received a holocomm call from Chancellor Palpatine, instructing me to carry out Order 66," Gree said. "Do you have any idea what he's referring to?"

The diminutive Jedi Master looked at the clone commander, and Gree realized that he had never before seen the expression he was seeing on the Jedi's face. It was pure, unparalleled fear.

"Fear I do," Yoda said, "that played for fools, we all have been."

Gree tilted his helmeted head to the side. "Played for fools?"

"Strong is the dark side right now," Yoda replied. "Attempting to kill the Jedi, the Sith are."

It clicked in the commander's mind. "Order 66 is an order to eliminate the Jedi commanders."

The green Jedi nodded once, his right hand plucking his lightsaber from his belt. "Ready, we must be, for our enemies to strike us."

Nodding, Commander Gree stood up and recalibrated his blaster carbine, the weapon clicking and whirring as he changed its power settings to fire more powerful, slower shots at closer range. He turned his head to inform his subcommander of the events, just in time to see a blue blaster bolt strike the back of the clone's helmet.

The subcommander pitched forward, falling out of the command center, his scream drowned out by the sounds of the battle below.

With time dilating to his perception, Commander Gree looked toward the walkway to the central command center to see a half-dozen blue-striped 501st Legion troopers marching at them, their blasters blazing. On instinct, Gree raised his blaster carbine and shot back, watching in satisfaction as his hastily-snapped shots took one of the attacking clones in the shoulder, spinning him around and throwing him off the walkway to the ground below.

But as he knew would happen, he felt hot fire burn through him, the shock of superheated tissues exploding knocking him backwards. He stumbled back, still firing, and watched another trooper crumple to the ground, a charred mass replacing his stomach. Another bolt caught him in the right shoulder, the impact spinning him around to fall onto his stomach, but as his vision cleared, he realized that he had already been on the edge of the command center, and he had nowhere to go but down to the beach, hundreds of meters below.

Gree refused to scream as he began the fatal plunge down toward the battle. But only a second into the fall, he felt as though he'd been seized by a tractor beam. He looked back over his shoulder to see Yoda standing on the edge of the platform, both hands in grasping positions toward the commander, and Gree knew that Yoda had saved his life.

As Yoda drew upon the Force to pull the commander back onto the platform, Gree heard the discharging of Wookiee bowcasters, and more screaming. His left hand grasped the edge of the platform and he pulled himself back up, his carbine clattering across the wooden floor. The second he looked up, he heard the _snap-hiss_ of Yoda's lightsaber igniting, then the Jedi Master was flying through the air toward the last two clones, their blaster shots flying wide as Yoda's green blade burned through both their throats, cleanly decapitating the troopers.

Deactivating his lightsaber, Yoda looked around at the scene of carnage as Tarrful and Chewbacca queried one another about what they had just seen, then decided that leaving would be the best course of action. Tarrful stepped over to Gree and, demonstrating the remarkable strength of Wookiees, lifted the clone commander bodily and slung him over his broad, furred shoulders, while Yoda scrambled up Chewbacca's arm to sit on his shoulder.

With their commanders secured, Tarrful and Chewbacca quickly made their way off of the command platform, heading into the relative safety of the Kachirho Tree.

---

In the Morobe system in the Mid Rim, Republic forces were mopping up the last remnants of CIS activity after a successful raid on a manufacturing facility on Talasea. Lumbering All-Terrain Tactical Enforcers marched through the foggy terrain, crushing vegetation beneath their six plodding legs. Smaller, more mobile All-Terrain Recon Transports accompanied the large walkers, along with dismounted Marines. Occasionally, a few blaster bolts would cut over the sound of Republic movement, marking a short engagement doubtless resulting in more scrap metal littering the landscape.

In a makeshift camp a few kilometers away from the slagged manufacturing facility, a blue-striped Advanced Recon Commando tilted his helmeted head to one side, then the other, cracking the stiff joints in his neck. He seated himself on a tree stump, laid his blaster rifle on the ground beside him, and reached up to his head, tripping the seal on his helmet and pulling the blue-and-white bucket up and off his head. Despite the environmental controls inside the clone's armor, steam rose from his head as he removed his helmet, and sweat dripped from his face. Talasea was a hot world.

Leaning against a tree trunk a few feet away from him, a dark-haired woman with crossed arms tilted her head to one side, smirking in amusement. "I think it's time you replaced that old armor with the new Phase II variety, Vauris," she told him. "Then maybe your environment controls will stop breaking on you."

The ARC trooper Vauris, designation Alpha-1337, gave her a look of indignation. "I can live with a hot shell," he said. "My kit hasn't failed me yet, General."

The woman rolled her eyes and stepped away from the tree, walking toward the seated trooper. As she moved, her cloak shifted position, revealing the lightsaber hilt dangling from her belt. "Haven't I told you to stop calling me General?" she asked, forming her right hand into a loose fist and placing her knuckles on the ARC's forehead, then lightly pushing his head back. When her fingers came away with his sweat on them, she grimaced at the offending moisture. "Ew."

Vauris grinned irritatingly. "Not the sharpest vibroblade in the weapon locker, are you, _Zar'ika_?"

Jedi Knight Zaran spitted him with a withering glare. "And when are you going to tell me what it means when you shorten my name like that?" she whined in jest.

"Oh come now," he said, laughing. "By the Force, you're a Jedi. You can figure it out on your own."

She pouted good-naturedly. "Nucca," she muttered under her breath.

Before the ARC could reply, a quartet of blue-armored troopers of the 501st Legion entered the campsite. Vauris stood up immediately, his expression setting itself in stone; Zaran recognized right away his long-standing dislike for what he disparagingly referred to as "Palpatine's personal schuttas."

Laying a reassuring, and restraining, hand on Vauris' right forearm, Zaran looked at the intruding troopers. Even she had to admit that there was something about the 501st that she didn't like; she found that both odd and discomforting, especially considering how well she got on with almost every other clone she had ever met. Something about the blue-armored clones was just… fundamentally wrong.

She made a quick glance at the rank designator at the very top of the lead trooper's breastplate, cleverly concealed beneath the overhanging shadow of his helmet. "Is there something wrong, Sergeant?" she asked.

"One moment, General," the trooper replied curtly, his attention, as well as that of the other three, focused on Vauris.

Inwardly, she bristled at the man's reply; every other clone she had met, with the exception of a few unfriendly ARC troopers, had been utterly and wholly respectful when speaking to her. When she spoke to a 501st trooper, on the other hand, it seemed to her like their tones were _tolerant_, not respectful. She didn't like that at all.

Almost immediately, the wrist pad on Vauris' left arm began beeping in the tone that indicated a long-range hypercomm transmission. The ARC glanced over at Zaran.

Before she could say or do anything, the 501st sergeant gestured off-hand at the ARC with his blaster carbine and said, "You'll want to take that call, sir."

Zaran immediately stiffened. Clones _never_ used their blasters to point at one another. Something was very wrong here.

Vauris knew it as well, as made evident by the look he gave to the sergeant, which told the trooper exactly where he could stick that blaster. And then, just to shove it in the infantry clone's face, he turned again toward Zaran. She nodded at him.

Purposely not looking at the four troopers, Vauris reached over with his right hand and activated the communication panel. Almost immediately, a shrouded figure appeared in one-sixteenth scale hovering over the wrist pad, bathed in blue light. Vauris squinted his eyes and stared hard at the figure, then quickly jerked his head back when he realized it was Chancellor Palpatine.

"_Alpha Thirteen thirty-seven,"_ Palpatine said, using his official designation; very few knew Vauris actually had a name. _"It is time for you to take the security of the Republic in your hands. Execute Order Sixty-Six."_

Immediately, Vauris jerked as if he'd been shot. He blinked rapidly, then wet his lips with his tongue before replying, "Begging the Chancellor's pardon, but could you confirm that?"

"_The Republic has been betrayed,"_ Palpatine replied smoothly. _"You must take matters into your own hands and execute the collaborators."_

Something cold and sinister appeared in the ARC's expression, and Zaran took a step away from him in apprehension. His right hand slipped across his body, to the holster of the commando blaster pistol hidden strapped to the armor of his left thigh, normally covered by his _kama_.

"Very well, Chancellor," Vauris said, a hardness in his voice that genuinely frightened Zaran. "I will eliminate the traitors of the Republic, as I see fit."

The holoimage of Chancellor Palpatine blinked out, and the clone slid his left hand behind his back. Drawing the blaster pistol with his other hand, he slowly turned toward Zaran, his left side facing the 501st troopers, all of whom were staring hard at Zaran.

Backing up against the tree she'd been leaning against earlier, Zaran's eyes were locked on the barrel of Vauris' blaster pistol, aimed generally in her direction. "Vauris…" she breathed. "What's…what are you doing?"

"It's just like Chancellor Palpatine said," he replied calmly. "There are traitors in the Republic, and it's my job to kill them."

She shivered violently, despite the hot air. "Me…? Jedi. The Jedi betrayed the Republic?" she asked in disbelief.

"That is what the Chancellor has said," he answered.

Closing her eyes, Zaran steadied her shaking nerves, then stood upright, spreading her arms to the side. "Then if I must die by the hands of my comrades, I would rather it be your blaster. Please, Vauris, aim for my heart."

"As you wish."

She heard a sound, but it was not the sound of a blaster pistol discharging. It was a muted whisper, a protracted sneeze. Then, a moment later, she heard the hard crack of armor plates shattering, and a clone's scream.

Her eyes snapped open and she saw the sergeant fly backwards, his chest armor shattered, knocking the other three clones off-balance. Vauris spun away from her, his blaster pistol leveled, and the whine of plasma discharging screamed through the air as a second 501st trooper's faceplate melted under the bolts from the pistol.

As his body turned away from her, she could see his left hand clutching the grip and trigger of his Verpine shatter gun, the barrel of the weapon still smoking from the shot it had fired to strike the sergeant.

The last two 501st clones were beginning to react, both firing their blaster carbines at Vauris and Zaran, one still flat on his back, the other trying to struggle to his feet. Vauris immediately rolled away to protect his unhelmeted head, blaster bolts ablating off his heavy armor. Zaran's lightsaber erupted into a blue pillar of flame in her right hand, deflecting the incoming fire away from her body. One bolt shot directly back off of her lightsaber, striking the halfway-upright clone in the chest. The trooper let out a short cry and collapsed back to the ground, dead.

To her left, Vauris rolled across his blaster rifle and came up on a knee with the weapon already tucked into his shoulder and sighted down. He squeezed the trigger twice, and the prone trooper twitched once, one bolt carving a tunnel into his gut, the other turning his throat into a mass of charred flesh.

Rising to his feet, Vauris swept the barrel of his rifle across all four 501st troopers, then slowly lowered it. He turned an apologetic expression toward Zaran.

Wide-eyed, her body shaking from more than just the adrenaline let-down, Zaran crossed the two steps separating them and looked at the four dead clones, her lightsaber still humming in the night air. "What happened?" she asked quietly.

"Long ago, back when we were still in training on Kamino, a man named Tyranus tried to order the cloners to indoctrinate us with an executive order to kill all Jedi," Vauris explained, turning away from the bodies. "But they didn't. A bunch of us ARCs got to thinking that maybe Tyranus was working for somebody who had a serious hate on for the Jedi. We didn't know back then that he was a Sith lord."

"Then how did Chancellor Palpatine know about the order to try and enact it?"

"You'd figure he wouldn't know, right?" The ARC trooper shook his head. "It was right then that I figured Palpatine had to be on the inside with Tyranus, and with the Sith, meaning that the Republic had been compromised from the very top."

"Oh, gods…" Zaran said. "We've been hunting him this whole time… and the entire time, we've been taking orders from him…"

"I know, it's bad," Vauris said bleakly. He ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. "Listen, Zaran, about just then. I–"

Without warning, the Jedi brought up her lightsaber, and Vauris instinctively tensed, ready to roll away from her strike. But instead of swinging down at him, her arm shot forward, and her lightsaber left her hand.

At the sound of lightsaber striking flesh, Vauris turned to find the shining blue blade buried hilt-deep into the bloody chest of the sergeant. As the clone let out a death groan and collapsed onto his back, the blaster carbine in his hand discharged, sending a blue bolt of energy into Vauris' left forearm, destroying his wrist pad, but not penetrating the armor.

Vauris looked back at Zaran, words of thanks forming on his lips, just in time to see the palm of her hand connect with the left side of his face, hard. Bright light flared in his vision at the impact from her slap, and burning heat formed a rough impression of her hand on his face.

"Don't you ever do that to me again!" she shrieked, more distraught than angry.

He had the distinct feeling that the force behind her slap had dislocated his jaw partially, but he didn't care. A strong mixture of relief and grief welled up inside him, and before he knew what he was doing, his rifle fell to the ground as he grabbed Zaran with both hands and pulled her into a bone-grating hug.

"I'm sorry, Zaran," was all he said, the thick emotion in his throat robbing him of wit or any other words.


End file.
